A Comedy Club Will Resurrect Dead Comedians in Hologram Form

Rodney Dangerfield and George Carlin are a few of the faces that could be digitized.

They brought back Tupac. They brought back Michael Jackson. Jerry Garcia and Selena both have new shows planned for 2015. The future is the past thanks to the wonders of hologram performances. And the trend won't stop at music, now that one budding operation wants to bring the surreal experience to the comedy world.

TheNew York Times reports that the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York, set to open in 2016, will include a hologram-filled comedy club as part of its expansive vision. Conceived as museum for all things funny (Jamestown is home to Lucille Ball and the annual comedy festival that bears her name), the National Comedy Center's club is also intended to be a throwback to yesteryear, bringing classic comedians to the stage through special effects and old recordings. NCC chairman Tom Benson told the Times that the club will feature roughly a dozen five-minute sets, making this the funniest proposition since Disney's animatronic Hall of Presidents. The virtual comedians will be created by Hologram USA, the company that made waves in 2012 when it brought Tupac to Coachella.

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Benson says that club will spotlight comedians like Milton Berle, Bob Hope, George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield. That is, if they can get the rights. It all rides on deals with artists' families. As of the announcement, "estates were not set and an inaugural lineup could still change."

While the National Comedy Center's lineup skews towards the I Love Lucy audience (a Ball hologram that performed her Vitameatagegamin routine was already in the works for the 2015 comedy festival), the ability to reintroduce classic bits to younger generations seems beneficial to the comedy arts. Just think of all the jokes Twitter kids would understand if they saw Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, Gilda Radner, Sam Kinison, Mitch Hedburg, Joan Rivers, or Andy Kaufman on stage, performing their bits outside the confines of grainy YouTube clips. Or take Henny Youngman's notorious "wife" joke … please.

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With development funds from the New York state government, the National Comedy Center plans to finish construction and open its doors in 2016. Here's hoping Hologram George Carlin still questions technology.